Critical thinking and clinical reasoning

A major problem in pain management right now is that there is an epidemic of erroneous reasoning. This is a pandemic of “broscience”, non-scientific thinking and dysrationalia. In debates, when people are faced with an argument and/or evidence that goes against their preconceived beliefs, the common answer is “but I know it works,” or “I […]

If you are advising or providing care for a person who has pain or is living with chronic pain, you need to have a firm grasp of current pain research, an in-depth understanding of the complexity of pain and your patients’ experience of it, and definitively know the many different factors which modulate pain. Combined, […]

I often get a lot of questions about how to learn more about science-based pain rehabilitation. Many participants in my course or lectures, as well as readers of my articles, often have questions about how to learn more, and of what books I recommend to learn more about science-based pain rehabilitation, clinical reasoning and Neuroscientific […]

There are however noxious stimulus, nociceptors, nociception, and nociceptive neurons. Nociceptors are specialized peripheral sensory neurons that alert us to potentially damaging stimuli by detecting extremes in temperature, pressure or injury-related chemicals. Nociception, however, a potent modulator of pain, but not the only one. It is vital that we as clinicians and professionals do fall […]

People do not exist in isolation, but rather we are biological, psychological and social creatures living within an environmental context (1). Multiple factors in this context will influence the worsening and maintenance of pain and disability. Please take a moment to ponder about the following statements: “All people experience pains as biopsychosocial experiences, no matter […]

As I have pointed out numerous times, pain science is just science about pain; there is no secret “pain science group”, camp or crowd, it’s just people who take a scientific look at the pain experience. It’s health professionals that use the current scientific knowledge about pain to inform and better their treatment and management of […]

I have for some years now, been reading articles and viewing lectures by Dr. Steven Novella. Some of these quotes are from articles, lectures and but most of them are from Dr. Novella’s course called “Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills”. In my opinion this course is the best introductory course to critical thinking […]

When patients want to know the reason and why they have pain, they are often told simple biomechanical and/or structural causes (Darlow et al. 2013, Setchell et al. 2017), such as lumbar lordosis, pelvic tilt, foot arch, leg length difference and so-called degenerative changes, just to name a few. As the reason why they have pain. This […]

This is an attempt to write a more complete pain definition, that acknowledges the multifactorial nature and complexity of the pain experience, and acknowledging the lessons learned and the knowledge we have gained from modern pain research and science. A science-based pain definition. The pain definition: Pain is part of a complex and dynamic process, multiple factors are involved […]

Photo: Carolyn Silvernail I am very proud and honored to have been allowed to represent Denmark at Paincloud Convention in Oslo. There were over 100 health professionals who participated, from more than 12 different countries and from 4 different continents. These health professionals were extremely fortunate to see a number of excellent presentations with international pain researchers and expert clinicians as Dr. Jason […]